How do I learn to use styles in word? The more I study the literature the more confused I become. When I try to set some styles myself, I get very unexpected results. eg. After setting a paragraph to a given style, I get a page break whether I want it or not.

I don't know what literature you have been reading but, here is a link that I think is one of the best: http://shaunakelly.com/word/styles/tipsonstyles.html. There are plenty of links within this link that should be really helpful in all aspects of MSWord....including styles.

Hope this helps...

If this is happening then the page break is set in the style. Change this setting in the style itself.

Or...the given style is inheriting the page break from a parent style.

I agree with both of the former answers. Shauna's page on Styles is excellent. If applying a Style gives you unwanted pagebreaks the style is set for Page Break before or (possibly if it is a large paragraph) keep lines together.

Here is another reference:
Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word
Basic Formatting in Microsoft Word